Yes, you should be able to use:

    require base;
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But that's not what the original code does. It does the equivalent of:

    require "base";
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which is different. The former goes out looking for a file called 'base.pm', while the latter goes out looking for a file called 'base'.

    $ perl -wle 'require "base"'
    Can't locate base in @INC (@INC contains: /home/abigail/Perl /opt/
+perl/lib/5.8.2/i686-linux-64int-ld /opt/perl/lib/5.8.2 /opt/perl/lib/
+site_perl/5.8.2/i686-linux-64int-ld /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.8.2 /op
+t/perl/lib/site_perl/5.8.1/i686-linux-64int-ld /opt/perl/lib/site_per
+l/5.8.1 /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.8.0 /opt/perl/lib/site_perl .) at -
+e line 1.
    $ perl -wle 'require "base.pm"'
    $
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This is documented in perldoc -f require.

Abigail